Indian origin Anil Menon among NASA’s 10 new astronaut recruits

Nasa-turned-SpaceX flight surgeon Anil Menon is among the 10 latest trainee astronauts who will join the 2021 class of the American space agency as it plans for the first human missions to the moon in more than 50 years. Dr Menon started as a NASA flight surgeon in 2014. He was chosen from among the more than 12,000 applicants and will now report for duty in January at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where he and the others will undergo two years of training. Born to Indian and Ukrainian parents and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he is a lieutenant colonel in the US air force and was SpaceX’s first flight surgeon.

He served Nasa as the crew flight surgeon for various expeditions on the International Space Station (ISS). Menon started as a Nasa flight surgeon in 2014 and supported four longduration crew members on ISS as the deputy crew surgeon for Soyuz missions Soyuz 39 and Soyuz 43 and prime crew surgeon for Soyuz 52. -(PTI)